For the two official positions of county order and zhi county, most people are not quite sure where the difference between them is, after all, they are all at the local county level, the highest official in charge of a county, so most people think that their functions and powers are the same, the grades are the same, but the names are different. But there is only a word difference, the two are very different, today let's talk about the difference between "Zhi County" and "County Order".
Official name
Zhi County, official name. Zhixian is said to have originated in the Tang Dynasty, when if the county official was temporarily vacant and could not find the right person to do the county order for the time being, the imperial court would let other official officials in the county, such as the county clerk, the county lieutenant, the main book, and so on, temporarily exercise the power of the county order, but at this time, because he was not a county order, just an agent, he was called "Zhi County Affairs".
Since the Qin and Han dynasties, the county order has been the chief official of a county. Tang called the adjutant (other official officials in the county) acting as the governor of the county. This is the origin of the term "Zhixian". Song often sent imperial officials as the governor of the county to administer a county administration, called "Zhixian Affairs", referred to as ZhiXian (meaning that no formal magistrates are appointed, and the functions of local officials are represented by officials dispatched by the central government, the so-called "governors"), such as the local garrisons, and also the soldiers and horses are also supervised or imprisoned, and the military is also in charge. The chief official of Yuan Dynasty County was renamed County Yin, and the Ming and Qing Dynasties took Zhi County as the official governor of a county, Zheng Qipin, commonly known as "Seven Pin Sesame Officials".
The head of a county
Refers to the head of a county. The name of the county order originated from the Warring States. Abbreviated order. He is the chief executive of a county-level administrative body. During the Warring States period, the Three Jins (Han, Zhao, and Wei) and Qin and Qi were already ordered. Qin Shang Martingale Transformation Law, "set small townships and towns into counties, place orders, Cheng, and all thirty-one counties" ("History of Shang Jun lie biography"). When they hear "county", many people will think of the county system and think that this official position began in the Qin Dynasty. In fact, this was not the case, at the end of the Warring States period, many princely states implemented the county system, and after Qin Shi Huang unified the six kingdoms, the county system was implemented throughout the country. In the system of the county system, the imperial court only managed to the county and county levels, and its chief was directly appointed by the imperial court. However, there were also three levels below the county level: "township, pavilion, and li", and their chiefs were recommended by locals, and the imperial court did not interfere.
In general, from the Qin and Han dynasties to the Sui and Tang dynasties, the head of a county was called "county order". It is worth saying that because China has been powerful since the Han Dynasty, it has been the suzerainty of East Asian countries for thousands of years, so the word county order has also spread to Korea, Japan, Vietnam and other places, and the county order is also the title of the head of a county in these countries. It was not until the Song Dynasty that the term "county order" changed, from the middle and late Tang Dynasty to the early Song Dynasty, two hundred years of feudal towns were divided, triggering years of war and displacement. After Zhao Kuangyin established the Song Dynasty, he learned from the experience of the previous dynasty, on the one hand, he emphasized literature and suppressed martial arts, and on the other hand, he changed the power of local officials.
Generally speaking, "county order" is a formal official position of the state, and "Zhi county" is only considered a formal official position after the Ming Dynasty. In the early days, the power of county orders was relatively large, and after the Yuan Dynasty, the power of county-level officials was gradually weakened.